Eli5 – How does solar power actually work?
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It’s called the “photoelectric effect” and it’s what Einstein got his Nobel Prize for, not the famous E=mc^(2).
Light is made of little balls of energy called photons. When photons hit materials, if they have enough energy they can knock electrons loose from the material and send them flying. “Moving electrons that have energy” is just another term for electricity. The solar panels are made of materials that readily get their electrons knocked loose by the incoming photons in sunlight, sending the electrons off down a wire. The energy in the light is converted to the energy of moving electons.
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